The Dutch Book Argument

The Dutch Book Argument plays an indispensable role in tracking minor incoherences in degrees of belief and offers proof that incoherence can (even if it not always actually does) have consequences. Monetary losses are only a vivid way of portraying the issue at hand, that since degrees of belief are primarily involved in formation of decisions, incoherence in degrees of beliefs translates into decisions set up in conflict with the agent’s goal of increasing subjective utility. Where a regular decision making scenario can offer a vague answer as to what might indicate an issue with coherence, a Dutch Book clearly shows an underlying issue in the way how the bets are set up, and precisely tracks the consequences of even slight incoherence in the formation of bets. In general decision making it is much more difficult to see whether the agent actually loses something (he is his own bookkeeper after all), whether the incoherence results in a gain, how often minor incoherence has any pragmatic consequences etc. Such interpretation of the Dutch Book also avoids the counterarguments of the possibility to not enter bets, to be rewarded by bookkeepers for incoherence, or to recognise the implied net loss.…